A number of alumni
have been kind enough to forward to us letters prompted by our
"Call to Arms" page.

The two below seem
to us exemplary in the way they address the relation between
athletics corruption and the decline of academic and intellectual
values at Rutgers.

We invite alumni,
faculty, students and parents who have written letters to the
Board of Governors, the RU Alumni Association, the RU Student
Assembly, or their state legislators to send us copies. We will
post them in an appropriate format as they come in.

6th July 2011

Mr. Ralph Izzo

Chair, Board of Governors

Rutgers University

Dear Mr. Izzo,

I am a graduate of Rutgers
College, Class of 1974. For several years I have watched with
apprehension the University's attempts to achieve recognition
through its athletic programs.

I
was one of the many alumni who believed that the hundreds of
millions of dollars spent on sports should have been used to
raise academic standards and to improve the appearance of the
campus. If the money had been spent for these purposes perhaps
Rutgers finally would have become a top public university.

Instead, a school whose
chief rival used to be Princeton chose to compete with notorious
football factories, even as its reputation steadily declined
in national scholastic rankings.

Now that Rutgers faces
an unprecedented fiscal crisis I ask why large subsidies continue
to be given to the athletic department. Rather than to throw
good money after bad, I urge the Board of Governors to devote
all available resources to improving academic instruction and
the quality of the student body.

Make Rutgers a highly
selective institution (like the College of New Jersey), attract
more out-of-state students (I was one), and convince the people
of New Jersey that Rutgers is more than a safety school. The
abolition of big-time sports and the restoration of participatory
athletics would be a first step in this direction.

Very truly yours,

Walter Boldys

Walter
Boldys graduated from Rutgers College in 1974 with high honors
and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated from Boston University
School of Law in 1977, and for many years worked as a specialist
in real estate and finance law at John Hancock Financial Services.
He is now in private practice in Boston.

The college that has a sports program
for any other reason than an educational reason is soon going
to lose control of the program.

If the
college goes in for sports as a part of a program of public entertainment
and public relations, then the public will dictate the kind of
entertainment it wants.

If the
reason is fund-raising, then the fund-raisers and the potential
donors will dictate the program.

Whatever
the reason may be, the college has lost control, including the
control of those parts of its education policy whichare related, such as admissions.

Mason Welch
Gross

16th President
of Rutgers University

Mason Gross's
background as Rutgers' most distinguished president included
a career as a gifted college athlete. To read a reminiscence
of his own undergraduate athletic experience, click here on Mason Gross
on Athletics.

Note: the following
was written by a Rutgers alumnus (Karl Engelman '55) to a fellow
alumnus who denounced a Star Ledger editorial about Rutgers athletics
as being based on "bias and pure fabrication." That
denunciation concluded with a suggestion that everyone go to
a booster blog entitled "On the Banks" to see a point-by-point
refutation of the Star Ledger editorial. Those who did so found
a screed accusing the Star Ledger of "having it in for Rutgers,"
and citing the ad hoc justifications offered by former athletics
director Robert Mulcahy and other athletics department personnel
as "proof" that the Star Ledger had not gotten its
facts right. Dr. Engelman's response was as follows:

Wally,

With all due respect
to your expertise in publishing and advertising, to accept the
empty platitudes contained in that blog as
direct and valid responses to the question of an athletic budget
gone amuck, is a disservice to reason and logic. The numbers
are the numbers. Whether a deficit occurs because of increased
expenditures or due to revenue deficiencies, a deficit is still
a deficit, especially when there is a crisis of financing of
the primary role of a college, education, not athletics.

Witness the dire situation
of our country as a far more important example of the same. Financial
balances are a matter of addition and subtraction, simple math.

What really makes me
sick to my stomach is this incessant glorification of the acclaimed
stellar APR of Rutgers football players. Remember years ago when
computer geeks spoke of "Gi-Go" ( Garbage in-Garbage
out), meaning that what you get out of the computer was a function
of what data you put in.

So it also is with "student"
athletes: make up the appropriate courses, enlist compliant and
complicit faculty, encourage "majors" that require
no work or intelligence, and you can get guys with IQ's of 90
to do genius work. But, are they able to read, reason and act
in the realm of truly functional college graduates?

Now, as to the fact
that Schiano's pay, to some significant degree, comes from a
commercial source (Nelligan) and not from the university budget.
Unfortunately, as a professor I am forced to believe that the
blog writer ranks in intelligence with the aforesaid athletes.
Does he truly believe in Santa Claus? Do all of you who subscribe
to that ruse not understand that the monies (share of Nelligan
profits) going to Schiano, might not have otherwise gone to the
university if the contract writers were so inclined? So, who
is really paying?

I've got a suggestion
for all who believe that the money comes from heaven. Organize
a petition to tear down the statue of Willie the Silent and substitute
an even larger one of St. Nicholas.

C'mon guys, we went
to Rutgers at a time when it was an educational institution,
not a sports factory for hirelings. Ask Angie; I've been told
authoritatively that he tried to downplay how good his grades
actually were so as not to blemish his reputation as an athlete.
We were privileged to go to Rutgers at a time when you knew and
valued the constant interchange with the athletes on campus and
you could be proud to call them classmates, which is exactly
what they were. Today, they are more like caged animals or gladiators,
sequestered off in group dorms, dining halls and special classrooms
and majors.

Rutgers, especially
under the ill-fated reigns of Lawrence and McCormick, has deteriorated
in national esteem as an institution of higher learning. And,
you know what, we're still not held in any esteem as a football
or basketball power. And why should we be?

As an aside, but relative
to the above comments, I was persuaded to organize and put on
an alumni luncheon for Fran Lawrence down here in South Carolina
during his last year in office. I had the misfortune to sit next
to him at lunch and to have to speak with him. I was appalled.
The man was a certified idiot, an embarrassment to the profession
of professor or college president.

Happy July 4th to all
of of you who joined together in entering Rutgers 60 years ago
as the Class of 1955 .

Karl Engelman

Karl Engelman,
M.D., graduated from Rutgers summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa
in 1955, and from Harvard Medical School in 1959. As an undergraduate,
he was a member of Cap and Skull, vice-president of Crown and
Scroll and the Interfraternity Council, and secretary-treasurer
of Scarlet Key. He retired as Professor of Medicine at UPenn
several years ago. As a Rutgers alumnus, he served as class officer
and class correspondent for more than 50 years.